Interleaving and varying your study location are good learning strategies (2012)

A different interpretation could be that seeing information embedded in different contexts signals your brain that the information is sufficiently generic as to merit storing it. In a way this might be somewhat analogous to spaced repetition but where space is interleaved instead of time.

Forgetting costs energy... Human memory seems association-based, and even uses the creative part of the brain so it can also generate details (often false) on the fly. So learning things via mnemonics is so successful even if counterintuitive that you're learning two things instead of one, but eventually the mnemonic seems to fade and you can deal with the thing you were after. But the mnemonic often seems to still be there. How do you deal with sudden recall of a memory or fact from 10+ years ago which you haven't thought about at all since then and that for all intents and purposes is useless and noise? There's a lot of stuff that is still 'there' in the brain, even if you can't recall, but may be triggered by some association, so how do you distinguish failure to recall with actual forgetting and the information not being there at all? The article mentions childhood phone numbers. I can remember at least one right now, it wouldn't surprise me if I could recall others with more careful thinking or perhaps some nostalgic browsing of old photos.

Changing locations is barely given a blurb in the article and I don't see how it would help that much apart from maybe motivation-related reasons (similar to having a separate room in your home for your home office). Is there a study on location changing? I'd bet the location trick's effects are dominated by the fact that spaced repetition is at play, which also gets mentioned in the article. Is there a study that tries to detect a difference between spaced repetition in the same location and spaced repetition in other locations? If there were a difference, then maybe it could work on the idea that you're creating a subconscious association with the place you're studying in and the thing you're learning, and by recalling and learning it in another location you're adding another association and strengthening the common paths. But I have to wonder if explicitly constructing a memory palace to create such associations between facts and things/places is a far superior strategy and again would dominate any effect of different location.

Love the material, but the book is sooo long and full of filler. I much prefer the article version:

http://tguilfoyle.cmswiki.wikispaces.net/file/view/What_work...

I don't remember "varying your study location" in that book.

I almost purchased that book. Is it working for you?

I second the recommendation for her course. It's a rare gem backed both by science and her considerable experience as an effective learner.

"How We Learn" by Benedict Carey is the one I've read on the similar topic, and liked. It's a compendium of scientific research about learning aggregated in a readable format by NYTimes science journalist.

I think the claim as written is dubious, but the point is that our capacity to store information far exceeds our ability to recall information, and we can effectively recall things only because we forget so much.

There are a few people with a condition called hyperthymesia, like Jill Price, and the condition generally has a profound negative impact on their lives.

I don't find it entirely implausible. Think of it like bloom filters or floating point numbers; the more you need to store and recall, the less accurate it will be.

Its not like there's an "erase" routine in our brains, it's just that the neural pathways start getting used more and more for other more important things. But there's still a readable trace of the old pathway there.

Sort of like the shortcut over the corner of the lawn where the grass can't grow because everyone goes there, but then when the new overpass is built people stop going there and new grass sort of grows over it but not completely because other people see the desire path and use it for other purposes every now and then so it never really disappears.

I find the opposite. I regularly get similar thought patterns going around in my head leading to insomnia. When I change location its far easier not to get trapped in those thought loops.

It makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint. You haven't associated the feeling of safety with the stimuli in this new environment. Which is good, because there could be threats you do not understand how to deal with yet.